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Thursday, 30 December 2010

The name I have given to this unit is quite random. I had some Eureka Miniatures "Marbleheaders" left over from when I painted the 14th Continentals three years ago. That unit was in firing line poses and Eureka also make a charging figure. I had a few of these in the leadpile and decided to combine them with figures from the Foundry charging Continentals pack to made another 1776 Continental Army regiment. Due to the Eureka figures' dress of sailors trousers I needed to find a regiment that recruited from coastal communities. Perusing Mollo I found the 6th Continentals which fitted the bill perfectly.....apart from the fact that I'd forgotten that I painted them back in April last year. As I'd already painted a few of the figures by the time I realised this, I needed to find another Massachusetts regiment that was also thought to have been uniformed in brown faced red coats - hence the 12th Continentals. In fact, I didn't look very far as the 12th are illustrated on the same page of Mollo as the 6th.

For the flag I have used one from "Flag Dude", which I understand is based on a flag captured at the battle of Long Island. If correct, the flag seems suitable for a 1776 regiment and in any event I thought the red and yellow colours blended in well with the regiment's uniforms. The Eureka figures are clearly more slender than the Foundry ones; the faces in particular are more angular. But I think the two lines fit well together and I'm pleased to have found a use for the Marbleheader figures beyond the 14th Continentals.

Tuesday, 28 December 2010

This is my second batch of Saratoga campaign British artillery. This gives me 3 gun crews and the command stand shown here. The Royal Artllery crews engaged at Freemans Farm suffered at the hands of American riflemen. Lieutenant Hadden's detachment of 6-pounders was caught in open ground. Of the 22 men in the detachment only Hadden and 3 others remained unknotted by the time reinforcements under Captain Thomas Jones arrived. Jones and the 11 men who had arrived with him were soon casualties and the remnants of Hadden's battery had to retire, leaving the guns themselves to the Americans. Had den himself carried Jones to a log hut that was full of wounded, but Jones had been mortally wounded and died shortly thereafter. The officer and drummer are taken from the Perry standing Saratoga line command pack.

At the recent Freemans Farm game I played with Eclaireur we used a rule that prevented Hadden's battery from rallying off disruption points by virtue of remaining stationary in a game turn. The point behind this was to replicate the conditions in which the battery found itself on the day. Sure enough, the battery quickly took casualties from Morgan's riflemen without causing much damage itself. The deliberate targeting by the Americans of officers and specialists is something that rules should take account of. If British regulars receive plus modifiers on bayonet charges and firing etc, there seems no reason why they should not be disadvantaged by American targeting...

Tuesday, 21 December 2010

This is the second building recently completed for me by Tablescape. The design of the house is taken from a house I photographed in Salem and is a pretty basic clapboard style. Many of the houses I saw in Salem and its surroundings are painted in the very dark brown/black colour you see in the photo. I thought this looked rather drab and so decided to haver it painted in a simple white colour. This also brought the house more into line with the buildings you see around Lexington common (as in the pic at bottom right below). This model isn't nearly as big as the church and, although a tad larger than your average Hovels AWI building, is far closer to a normal tabletop size, I think.

Once again I'm sorry about the lack of posts recently. For various reasons I'm finding it difficult to find the time to photgraph things at the moment. I have plenty of figures sitting on the kitchen table waiting for a suitable moment (5 posts' worth, actually!), but that moment is proving elusive. It's very dark again in London so taking photos early in the morning before I leave for nursery and then on to work isn't really feasible, but I'll see what I can do over the next couple of days. I now have 3 lots of artillery and 2 infantry battalions ready to go. On the workbench are more American artillery, some Carlist Wars infantry and the rest of the 61me Ligne for 1815. I then want to paint up another couple of AWI British line battalions.

Thursday, 2 December 2010

The regiment was raised in Scotland in 1755, initially as the 57th Foot. It was re-numbered the 55th in 1757. It was sent to Halifax in 1757 and saw extensive service in the F&IW. Lord George Augustus Viscount Howe was appointed Colonel of the regiment in September that year and proceeded to train the regiment in light infantry tactics, skills that Howe had studied with Robert Rogers. Howe, described by General Wolfe as "the best officer in the British army", was one of the older brothers of the AWI's Billy Howe. In 1758 the regiment took part in Abercrombie's attack at Ticonderoga, during the course of which Howe was killed in a skirmish. The regiment continued to fight until the French surrender in 1760. The regiment then remained in America on garrison duty. A detachment suffered badly in the Battle of Bloody Run during Pontiac's rebellion.

In 1763 the regiment's men were drafted into various other regiments while the officers went to Ireland to raise a new battalion. The 55th next appeared in American in December 1775. It was present at the battles of Long Island, Brandywine and Gremantown. In November 1778 the battalion left America for duty in the West Indies.

This is another older unit that I have recently added to. The 55th was one of the first British regiments I painted, back in 2004. I only painted 12 figures because that was what was required for the Brandywine and Germantown orbats. When I was going through the leadpile recently I found two dozen firing line figures of Brits in 1768 warrant dress. After a perusal of the various "British Grenadier!" scenario books I decided to add another 4 figures to the 55th Foot and then paint the 57th Foot from scratch. The 55th increases to 16 figures for the Long Island scenario so I thought I might as well use up some of these spare figures getting the battalion up to full strength. Completely co-incidentally, I noticed that Steve Jones had recently done the same thing on his rather excellent blog.